After Facebook announced in March that it’d be launching a pilot program with a few brands that would let customers and companies communicate privately, the social media network said Wednesday that it’s expanding the rollout of Messenger for businesses.

This means customers will be able to send messages to companies or brands with customer service requests, including questions about orders, receive order confirmations or get responses to quick questions.

Businesses can include a “send message” button in their ads on Newsfeed, reports Reuters, allowing users to click a button and send a private message. And if a user posts on a business’ Facebook page, the company will be able to privately message that person as well. Users can choose to block those businesses from private messages, however.

Because another form of contact is no guarantee that companies will be obliged to reply quickly, Facebook is awarding “very responsive messages” badges to businesses who do react promptly, respond to 90% of messages and reply on average within five minutes.

Facebook will also include a note on Pages that have messaging enabled (as it’s an optional function), telling visitors how often it usually takes them to respond.

“Our ultimate goal is to facilitate communication between consumers and businesses in the way they prefer most,” Benji Shomair, director of Pages product marketing at Facebook told CNET. “When people message the page, they have expectation for a response in a timely fashion,” he added.

Facebook launches feature to allow businesses to privately message users [Reuters]
Facebook aims to make it easier for companies to message you [CNET]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.